Damn, Netflix Is Cracking Down on VPNs and Proxies

If you use a proxy to access another country’s version of Netflix, you may be screwed. Up until now, the streaming service hasn’t been good at stopping them—but that’s about to change.

“In coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are,” Netflix Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture David Fullagar wrote in a blog post.

When you watch Netflix in the UK and then go to Italy and watch it there, you don’t see the same list of shows and movies. (Also, stop watching Netflix on holiday, go to a vineyard or something.) Since the streaming service has licensing agreements that vary from country to country, it doesn’t offer a universal roster—which is why people often use unblocking services to access Netflix’s offerings from abroad.

In the past, anyone who wanted to watch more old episodes of Top Gear in the UK simply had to install a service that lets you bypass geoblockers to access US Netflix, which offered the show. (Why do Americans get so many episodes of Clarkson & co anyway?) If Fullagar isn’t bluffing, services like Hola won’t work anymore.

Netflix hasn’t explained how this is all going to work in practice. While there’s still time, I highly recommend installing some sort of VPN/proxy and cruising around foreign Netflix offerings. Did you know Japan offers The Godfather?